


A Horror Story

by Kneeckoh



Category: Vocaloid
Genre: Gen, spoopy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 08:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8438980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kneeckoh/pseuds/Kneeckoh





	1. Chapter 1

“You sure this is a good idea?”

“Sure it is!” was the cheerful reply.  “I mean, nothing bad could happen, right?”

“Right...”

The girl sighed and turned her gaze to the sky.  There was just no discouraging her, once she set her mind on something.  Well, it’s not like anything could  _ actually _ go wrong...

“Hey, Neru,” said a voice from behind her.  The ponytailed girl turned, nearly whacking the speaker with said ponytail.  “Whoa!  Careful there!”

“Oh, hey, Teto,” Neru replied, brushing her hair out of the way.  “I didn’t really expect you to tag along with us on this.”

The drill-haired girl laughed.  “Aw, c’mon!  You know I wouldn’t pass up an opportunity like this.  It’s not every day I get to show my true self!”

“Yeah, you’re lucky,” Neru said, crossing her arms.  “You don’t even have to get yourself a costume.  You’ve pretty much got one built in.”

“Yup!” the girl giggled.

Neru surveyed Teto’s “costume”, which was actually just her chimera form.  Her tail waved about from under her skirt, and occasionally her bat-like wings flapped, but other than that Teto was just wearing her normal clothes.

_ That... doesn’t really count as a costume, does it _ , Neru thought to herself.  She glanced back at the twins following them.  At least  _ they _ had actual costumes.

...Well, sorta.  Either way, though...

Neru swung around to glare at the girl they were following.  Whenever she saw Miku’s costume, Neru couldn’t help but put a hand to her head.  She knew Miku loved them, but to  _ dress up _ like a spring onion took a whole different kind of crazy.  Neru still wasn’t quite sure how the costume even worked.

“Hey, Neru?” asked a voice from beside her.  The yellow haired girl turned, nearly whacking the speaker with said yellow hair.  “Woah!  Careful there!”

“Ah, sorry, Teto,” Neru replied, brushing her hair out of the way.  “So, what was it you wanted?”

Teto tilted her head.  “I was just wondering... what exactly  _ is _ your costume?”

...Neru turned away and folded her arms across her chest.  “I’m... it’s a cat.”

She could hear Teto giggling to herself.   _ Crud... totally walked into that one... _

“Buh... but, don’t you th-think,” Teto managed between laughs, “that it doesn’t really suit you?  Oh!  Oho!”  Teto exclaimed.   _ Oh no. _  “Maaaybeee,” she continued patronizingly.  “You didn’t really think Len would wear the same costume two years in a row, did you?  Eh, did you??”  The drill-haired girl put her elbow up on Neru’s shoulder and looked up at her, grinning.

_ My face feels like it’s on fire! _  “It’s not like that!” Neru hissed through her teeth, pushing Teto’s elbow off her.  She crossed her arms and closed her eyes, turning her face away from Teto.  “I... just thought it would look... good.  On me.”

Teto giggled again.  Neru sighed, exasperated.  “It’s not like... I just...  It......” Neru leaned to Teto and whispered through her teeth, “Just... don’t tell him, OK?”  Neru glanced back to look at Len (or was that Rin) to make sure they weren’t listening.  Teto clapped her hands together in front of her.

“I won’t,” she promised, grinning widely.  “I promise!”

Before she had any time to be skeptical, “We’re here, everyone!” said a voice from ahead.  Neru and the others turned to the green and white vegetable who was pointing away from the street.

A path led up from the sidewalk they were following to the front door of a house.  Well, “house” didn’t really describe the building.  It was more of a... castle tower, maybe?  Either way, it was definitely out of place along this suburban road which had, until just a little while earlier, been lined with nearly identical houses...

The group made their way up the hill via the cobblestone path, approaching the ominous tower.  Neru was  _ fairly  _ certain that there hadn’t been a stone tower on this street before, but the others didn’t seem too concerned.  The six of them stopped before the humongous, oak door which looked more appropriate for a dungeon than a dwelling.

“I’m scared,” said Len- no, Rin.

“It’s okay,” said Rin- er, Len.

Undaunted by the ominous atmosphere, Miku bound forwards and pulled the iron knocker back, knocking it loudly against the door several times.  Excluding the cheerful Miku, the others stood tensely in the cool evening air.  Nothing happened for a few seconds, then a latch was heard and the door began to creak open.

**“TRICK OR TREAT!!”**

They were greeted with silence, save for the creaking of the door and a slight breeze.  Slowly, the door swung open, revealing naught but a dark, stone corridor beyond.  A damp, dank smell emanated from it.

“Hello!?” Teto shouted, startling Neru and the twins.  “Is anyone there?!”  Her shout echoed hollowly back to them.  The group stood silently for a few moments, but no reply was heard.

“Anyone got a light?” Miku asked.

“Wh- what??” Neru exclaimed, confused and concerned.

The twintailed girl turned to her.  “A  _ flash _ light, dummy,” she said patronizingly.

“Oh...  Right,” Neru said, rolling her eyes.   _ You didn’t have to say it like that... _  She glanced at the others.

The twins didn’t seem to be having any luck, Teto shrugged, and Miku... well, she wouldn’t have asked if she had one, right?  Neru sighed.  She hadn’t wanted to waste its battery like this, but...

“I think my phone has a flashlight,” she said, pulling it from its pocket.

“Well,” Teto said, “You’d better stand in front, then!  C’mon!”  She began to push Neru into the doorway, but Neru wasn’t about to let her do that.

“Hey!  Quit it!” Neru shouted, bracing herself against Teto’s pushes.  “I haven’t even turned it on yet!”  Teto let up a bit, giggling, as Neru got her footing.  “Sheesh.  You probably wouldn’t go anywhere near here if you were in your normal form.”

Teto laughed.  “I don’t know about that!”  Neru rolled her eyes and turned the phone’s light on.  With how the phone’s software was designed, she had to use the camera app to be able to activate the flashlight.  It was a bit of a drain on the battery, but she had charged it before they had left, so she figured it should be fine.

Neru shined the light into the darkness, revealing little except more of the corridor.  It continued straight, further than the phone’s weak light could reach.  Slowly, Neru observed the walls of the corridor for any identifying marks or items, but the stones were relatively featureless.  Was this really the right place...?  Unfortunately for Neru, the others seemed sure that it was, indeed, their destination, and were repeatedly trying to urge her further into the building.

“Alright, jeez, calm down!” Neru finally exclaimed, after a particularly desperate push, probably from Teto.  Pausing a moment- but not  _ too  _ long, noting the others’ impatience- Neru stepped through the doorway, with the others following a bit too closely behind.  Just a few steps into the narrow space, a loud “ _ BOOM!” _ echoed through the corridor, making Neru yelp and spin around towards the sound’s source.  The others were similarly turned, in varying degrees of surprise, all looking at the now very closed oaken door there.

Neru shone her light on the door’s handle and, uh... Len, who was the closest, gave it a fruitless tug.  “It’s locked,” he replied after a few more tries.

“Okay, own up,” Neru said, having had quite enough of this.  “Who closed the door?”  She held her hand out before anyone could answer, continuing, “Wait, no, lemme guess- it closed itself.”

The others glanced between each other before looking back at Neru and saying, nearly in unison, “It wasn’t me!”

After looking between each of them in turn, Neru let out a heavy sigh and turned back towards the corridor.  “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.  I’ll just-“

She was interrupted by Miku leaping onto her shoulder and saying, “C’mon, Neru, lighten up!” in her usual bubbly tone.  “We’re here for the candy, remember?”  To emphasize her point, the twintailed girl held her candy bucket out in front of Neru, swinging it slightly.

Shrugging Miku off her shoulder, Neru replied, “Yeah, yeah, sure.”  With a sigh, Neru stepped ahead and continued, “I’m just here to make sure you guys don’t get into too much trouble.  I’m the old-“ She glanced back at Teto.  “...I  _ am _ the oldest one here, after all.”

Miku giggled and Neru rolled her eyes.  Focusing on the ground ahead of them, Neru began making her way down the hallway.  She would have preferred to stay home as she usually did, but when she was sought out specifically by the group she now found herself with, she couldn’t really refuse.  Not if he was...   ...Either way, here she was now, leading the group through this... dark, musty corridor...

A short yelp sounded from behind, followed by a few scrabbling sounds.  “Ah, N-Neru, wait!  I- I’m-“ followed by another cry.  Sighing, Neru turned and faced the rest of the group to see what the trouble was.  She shined the light over each of them in turn:  Teto, Miku, Len... or Rin?  Wait-

“Are you okay?” Miku asked the twin.  Reevaluating the group, Neru could only see one of the pair...  She glanced back, shining the light down the path ahead, but she doubted that anyone had managed to get past her, and the tunnel was similarly deserted.  As she turned back, she started, “Where’s Ri- er, Le- ...oh.”

“S-sorry,” the other twin said sheepishly.  “I just tripped...”  Neru blinked a few times.  She could have sworn...  But it was probably just the light playing tricks on her.  A quick head count revealed that their number was complete again, despite what she had seen a moment before.

“...Well, if that’s sorted out...” Neru began, turning to the front again.

“Ah, N-Neru, wait!” Le... Rin yelped.  Sighing, Neru turned back towards the group to see what the trouble was.  “M...my shoelace is untied...”  After a pause, “C-could you bring the light over here, maybe?”

A moment passed, and Neru replied, “Yeah, alright,” and stepped over to the twin, crouching to shine the phone’s light on the untied shoe in question.

“Th-thanks...” Rin... yeah, Rin replied, and began fumbling with the strings on her shoe.

“...You okay there?” Neru asked, noting the girl’s shakiness.

“Ah- haha, y-yeah, I’m just... this place is kinda scary, y’know?”

“I guess so.”  After watching her fumble helplessly with the strings on her shoe for a few moments more, Neru sighed and shifted her position.  Looking over her shoulder, Miku was loudly discussing the atmosphere of this place with Teto, with Len watching along, rather bemusedly.  Neru watched their conversation for a few moments before turning back and asking, “Are ya done yet- Rin?”

After staring at the empty corner for a few seconds, Neru stood.  “Rin?” she called once again but, even looking both ways down the corridor, the blonde girl was nowhere in sight.  “Wh... where’d she...”  A moment passed.  The conversation silenced as the others realized what she meant.  “She’s gone,” Neru explained.

“Wha... what do you mean ‘she’s gone’?  She was literally right in front of you!”

“I- I just looked away for a moment, okay!?  And-“

“And he just  _ vanished _ into thin air right under your nose?” Len retorted angrily.

“Look, I don’t know!”  Neru shouted.  “She was there one moment, and the next she was gone!  What do you want me to do about it, you idiot!?”

“H-hey, guys,” Miku interjected, stepping between the two of them.  “Calm down.  We’ll figure out what happened to...”

Neru stared at the blond boy for a few more moments before sighing and crossing her arms, stepping against the wall.  “Yeah, yeah, sorry,” she mumbled, staring down at the floor.  “Let’s just... find Rin and get out of here.”

“Aw!” Miku exclaimed.  “What about the candy??”

A questioning glare was Neru’s only response, but Len was a bit less harsh.  “C’mon, Miku, we can figure out where the candy is after we find my dumb brother.”

...Wait

“Wait-

“Where’s Teto?”

Pausing at Miku’s question, L... Rin... turned and glanced back down the corridor.  “Neru-“

Snapping herself from her reverie, Neru quickly turned the phone’s light up and down the corridor once again, confirming that Teto was... nowhere in sight.

“Teto!” Rin called down the corridor.  “Len!?  Where are you?!”  The only answer was her own echo.

“Neru, what do we do?” Miku pleaded.

“Wha- You’re asking  _ me _ !?” Neru retorted.  “I don’t- I have no idea what’s even going on!  Look, maybe- maybe they just, went back outside?”

Miku looked doubtful.  “We would have noticed that...” She pointed back the way they had come, continuing, “We would still be able to see them if they had; the door was locked, remember?”

“Maybe they... went up ahead?  There might be a corner or something...”  But as Neru turned the phone to shine down the corridor, she could see no sign of the two who were missing from their group.  A moment passed, but the bare, cold stones of the corridor returned nothing but the sound of their own breathing.  Neru stared a moment longer, and in the distance she saw... a glimmer?

“Okay, we have to-“ Neru said abruptly, stepping away from the wall.  “You two, walk in front of me.  I don’t want either of you, like, disappearing on me as well.”  At her ushering, the two Crypton Vocaloids hesitantly began walking ahead of her down the corridor.  She followed, keeping an eye on the both of them, as well as the path ahead, until the trio came to the source of the glimmer Neru had spied earlier: the end of the corridor.

The three of them stopped before the dead end, having no way to progress.  Rin glanced back at Neru, asking the obvious question: “Now what?”

Neru stood a moment, then reached forward between the pair and felt the stone of the wall, just to confirm that it was, like... real, and not just some sort of illusion or hologram or something.

“They couldn’t have come this way...” Miku said sadly.

“Aw, c’mon, Miku, don’t think like that!” Rin said brightly.  “There’s probably, like, a secret passage or something here.”  The blonde girl began pressing on the stones of the blocking wall.  “There’s always one in these sorts of places, right?”

Though Miku seemed quite keen to that idea, Neru rolled her eyes and said, “That kind of stuff only happens in movies.”  The two would not be deterred, however, and her comment seemed only to make them search harder.  Sighing, Neru stepped to the right and leaned against the wall there, angling the phone’s light lazily towards the dead end wall.

Glancing down at the phone’s screen, Neru remembered that the camera app was still active, for the light.  Leaning back a bit further, Neru lined up a shot and tapped the button.  The light flashed, the picture taken, but the pair didn’t seem to notice.  They were too engrossed in their study of the wall.

Admiring her handiwork, Neru held the phone up and rested back against the wall- and it gave behind her.  Her eyes widened, and with little more than a soft yelp, she fell backwards, through the wall.

Landing roughly on her back, the phone was knocked from her grasp and skittered across the ground to rest, light angled at the floor, a few feet away.  She could only watch, in the dim reflected light, as the wall silently completed its rotation and sealed the way back.

Hesitantly, Neru stood up, unable to tear her gaze away from the featureless wall.  She took a few shaky steps forward and put her hands on it, to see if it was as real as the last one.  Again, she was greeted with nothing but the cold, unyielding stones of the wall.  Desperately, she ran her hands along the rough surface, trying to find- to find something, anything out of the ordinary, but the solid wall would yield none of its secrets to her.  Her heartbeat was racing and she banged on the wall, shouting for someone, anyone, “Rin!  Miku!!”  She held still, waiting for any answer, but there was none.  She grit her teeth, then cried out again, “Teto!   _ Len!!  Anyone!!! _ ”

Her voice echoed through the hall, but the silence was nearly more deafening.  She leaned against the wall, arms outstretched, staring at the stone bricks as if that would help her see through them.  What... what did she do now?  Were the others okay?  Would... would they be okay without her?  They...

…

Neru crawled over to her phone, picking it up and flipping it over.  Pausing just as she was about to return to the home menu, she realized that if she closed the camera app, the light would automatically shut off…  Biting her lip, she hesitated, unsure how to proceed until she noticed the symbols along the top of the screen.  There wasn’t… any reception in here, so even if she wanted to text or call them, she couldn’t anyway...

Sighing, she shook herself from her reverie and stood up, surveying the area she was in now.  Shining the light around revealed... a nearly identical corridor to the one she had been in only moments earlier.  With her back to the false wall, the corridor continued into darkness to the right, and just to her left was, as before, a dead end.

A quick examination of the wall at the end of the corridor didn’t reveal much, other than that it was a wall.  Neru turned and began making her way in the opposite direction, parallel to the way they had come, running her hand along the barrier that separated the two hallways.

Her footsteps echoed down the barren corridor, and little was revealed by the light from her phone.  She continued on for some way, the excitement from earlier wearing away into boredom.  Despite being in a relatively narrow space and being able to see only a few feet in front of her, Neru was calm.  There were no spooky noises, no unstable spots in the floor, and, all in all, she was safe.

...That’s what she told herself, at least.  Truth be told, she probably would have jumped out of her skin if anything other than the wall beneath her hand touched her.  But, well, it’s not like this place was  _ dangerous _ or anything, right?  The others were probably-  were definitely fine.  They were just... somewhere else right now.  Being... very quiet.  This place hadn’t looked that big from the outside...  Hang on, hadn’t they seen a tower from the outside?  Since they’d entered, there had barely been any change in elevation...

Neru was so absorbed in her thoughts that she nearly missed it.  Stopping and taking a step back, Neru shone the light to her left... and down another corridor.  In all aspects it was identical to the hall that stretched into the darkness ahead of her, except for one:  starting at the intersection and continuing down the perpendicular hallway a thick, elegant red carpet covered the floor.

She paused, deliberating for a moment.  Glancing back down the way she had been heading, Neru decided that there wasn’t really much point continuing that direction.  She was essentially just retracing her steps if she did that…

Taking a shaky breath, Neru stepped onto the carpet, and began walking down this side path.  The carpet itself was embroidered rather elegantly, with gold and crimson designs bordering it.  Neru was half tempted to reach down and feel it, but it really wasn’t the time for that.

Apart from the carpet, though, this corridor didn’t seem to be all that different from the previous one…  Neru continued onwards, scanning the corridor every so often to see if there were any other passageways or changes, but the stone walls and carpeted floor continued, uninterrupted for the duration of her walk.  At a few points, she stepped to one side, pressing particularly oddly shaped stones in the wall to see if another passageway was hidden there, but none of her attempts bore any results.

After what seemed like an hour, but was probably only about five, ten minutes, the corridor ended.  It ended, not in a wall, but in the sense that it couldn’t be considered a “corridor” any longer.  Perhaps she would have known what was coming due to the sound, but the thick carpet muffled any noises echoing through the passageway.  Perhaps her destination would have been indicated by the faint, bluish light filtering in through the high windows, but Neru was much too focused on the bright light her phone cast to notice.  So it wasn’t until she was a good ways out, having been fixated on the carpet’s pattern, that she noticed that she was no longer in the cramped hallway.

Wide-eyed, Neru lifted her phone, swinging the spot of light over the enormous room.  The carpet continued to stretch into the darkness, but now it was accompanied by stone pillars arching to the high ceiling.  Hanging directly above the carpet, at a wider interval than the pillars, unlit crystal chandeliers glittered in her phone’s light.  Bringing the beam to the side and back down to eye level, she squinted at the darkness between the pillars.  She could just barely make out the wall past them, still made of stone, but she could see alcoves and more organized brickwork set into it.  Stepping further along the carpet, she slowly scanned the light along the wall...

With a gasp, she flinched backwards, the light flicking to the ceiling once again.  W… was that… had she really seen…?  Shakily, she stepped forwards, swallowing and bringing the light back down to the side of the pillar.  This time, she’d braced herself, so she didn’t flinch.

Partially obscured by the pillar was an unmistakable human figure.  Was it… another person?  Upon closer observation, it became apparent that, though it had a clearly human shape, this was not a person.  With a haughty sigh, Neru put a hand on her hip, looking the suit of armor up and down with her light.

The metal figure stood at attention, its back to the wall, both hands gripping the pole of a large battleaxe which stood vertically in front of it.  Somehow though, the medieval suit of plate armor didn’t seem out of place in this dark, dank grand hall.  Just to be sure, she raised her fist and knocked on its metal breastplate, and was greeted with the hollow sound of an empty suit of armor.  Satisfied, she took a step back, but the armor seemed to have other ideas.  With a horrific screech, the axe swung downwards, clanging against the pillar just in front of it and causing Neru to yelp and jump back again.  Creating a terrible grating noise as it did so, the blade slid to one side of the pillar, eventually finding purchase in thin air and violently crashing to the ground, lodging itself in the stones between Neru’s feet.

Her breath and hands shaking, she stepped slowly back.  Her heel caught on the edge of the carpet and she stumbled backwards, landing on her butt on the thick upholstery.   _ J-just a coincidence,  _ she thought to herself. _  Its arms m-must have dislodged when I knocked on it…  Y-yeah, that’s gotta be it. _

Swallowing, she picked herself up from the ground, keeping the light trained on the aggressive armor.  Swinging her hand around, she peered into the darkness past the pillar on the opposite side of the carpet and, as she suspected, spotted another suit of armor standing there, completing the hall’s symmetry.

Taking another deep breath, Neru felt her heartbeat slow from its frantic beat to a more reasonable pace.  Following the carpeted path, Neru continued on her way further down the hall, noting that the pattern of armor and pillars remained as before.

Neru brought a hand up, cupping it around her mouth, before calling the names of her missing friends once again. The sound echoed through the large room but no reply came, and deathly silence filled her ears once the echoes dispersed.  With a slightly exasperated sigh, Neru rolled her shoulders and continued on her journey.


	2. Chapter 2

...Why had this happened to her?  Why had this... happened at all?  Neru rolled her eyes.  It was probably just an elaborate prank, set up by the others to try and scare her or something…  She thought back to when they were together.  They had been rather insistent that she be the one to lead them…  The more she thought about it, the more suspicious their actions had seemed.  Ri… no, it must have been... Len, after all…  His having to tie his shoe and then suddenly disappearing, Miku’s constant eagerness, and the way Teto had been teasing her…  Something had to be up.

Glancing down at her phone, an idea popped into her head.  With a few quick motions, she’d accessed the phone’s gallery, scrolling through the recent images she’d taken.  There were a few from the day before, when she’d stopped by the Crypton house to see their final preparations… She scrolled quickly past one of herself in her own costume, pausing at the next photo which had been taken a short while after they had come to pick her up.  All four of them had been there to greet her…  For the most part, she’d been discreet in her attempts to photograph Len, but in some of these photos it was a lot more obvious than others.  She would sooner die than let other people get ahold of her phone with these on it…

The next picture was the one she had taken in the entrance hall, just before she’d been separated from Miku and Rin.  The pair had been engrossed in that unremarkable wall…  Neru squinted at Rin’s visible hand, before zooming in.  Or… at what would have been her hand, had it not been obscured by… the wall itself.

A look of disbelief crossed Neru’s face.  Had Rin… actually found a hidden switch just then?  The cobblestone beneath the blonde’s hand was unmistakably depressed into the wall in the photo.  Had that… could that have... caused the wall behind her to rotate…?

Neru began to consider further options, but was suddenly distracted.  At the bottom of the screen was the numbering of the photos.  It seemed to be indicating… one more?  This one should have been the last one, since it was the most recent, but…

Swiping across the screen, a familiar scene was revealed.  Judging from the angle, the photo was taken rather close to the floor…  Framed rather haphazardly on the screen was the suit of armor, axe, and pillar she’d encountered not too long ago.  She must have accidentally snapped a photo when she’d fallen…

…

A shiver ran, unbidden, down her back.  Suits of armor… couldn’t suffer from red-eye in photos, right?  She swallowed dryly, her mind racing, trying to find a reasonable explanation for the armor’s blood-red glare.  It… it must just be a trick of the light, right?  There was a small, orangish light beside the outer lens on her phone, used to indicate when the camera was in use, perhaps it was just a reflection of that?  Or- or maybe there was just a red light inside the helmet…?  It… it’s not as if... the suit had had glowing red eyes, like in a low budget horror movie…

Neru dared to look up from the screen to check the nearby armor suits, fiddling with the photo gallery.  That picture was the last thing she wanted to look at right n-

She was suddenly plunged into darkness.

Neru let out a shriek and returned her attention to the phone, running her fingers along its edge, trying to find the power button.  Pinpricks ran up and down her entire body, and any number of horrific scenarios flashed through her mind, the darkness fuelling the panic she had been so desperately trying to subdue.  With a triumphant gasp, she pressed the small button on the side of her phone- and was immediately blinded by a sudden, bright light.

“Wh- who’s there?!” she instinctively called.  Squinting, she brought a hand up to shield her eyes from the glare, taking a few steps back.  She glanced down at the phone’s screen, hoping to perhaps make something out in the camera preview being displayed, but as she tilted the screen up towards herself, the light in her face lowered.  Blinking a few times to clear the spots in her vision, she lowered her arm and saw-

Herself!?

A split second of panic was replaced with exasperation as the realization hit her.  Sighing, she pulled a finger down her cheek and stuck her tongue out at her reflection.  It was a mirror.  A mirror she’d happened to blind herself with the reflection of the phone’s light.  How had she managed to not notice it up until just now?

Raising the phone once again, Neru shined the light outwards, trying to find the edges of the mirror, but she couldn’t quite discern where the mirror ended and the space to the wall began…  She ran a hand across the glass surface as she made her way to one side of the grand hall, keeping the light trained on the spot where the reflections intersected.  It became apparent as she approached the invisible corner that the mirror was flush with the wall, and as she scanned the light upwards, she realized there wasn’t a gap between the ceiling either.  The mirror filled the entire hallway, creating the illusion that hall continued quite some distance further.  If her own reflection hadn’t been visible, it may have just been a pane of glass instead; it was even set equidistant between a span of pillars.

With an unamused sigh, Neru brought a hand up to her bangs, running it through her hair before it hit the band of her headphones.  Glancing at her reflection, she remembered what her “costume” was…  A slight blush formed on her cheeks as she felt the fake cat ears she’d attached to her headphones, in the hopes that she’d match the minimalist style Len had employed last year.  Slightly swinging her hips, the white cat’s tail she’d tucked into her skirt dangled loosely, completing her so-called “costume”.

The sound of a shutter clicking broke her out of her reflection, and, startled, she glanced down at her phone’s screen to see her thumb lightly pressed against the picture button.  Groaning slightly, she turned away from the mirror, sliding the photo gallery open once again.  Indeed, there was the photo she’d accidentally taken of herself just a few seconds ago.  There wasn’t a question about it, this one was getting deleted.  She couldn’t let anyone see her like th-

She paused, her thumb hovering above the delete button.  An icy dagger shot through her chest, sending shivers through her body.  Slowly, she dared to look up.

In her search for the mirror’s edge, she’d strayed a few feet from the edge of the carpet, and was standing nearly between the two… or what appeared to be two, pillars on one side of the grand hall.  As before, the pillar was accompanied by a suit of armor, standing at attention with its back to the wall.  It held a broadaxe vertically, just as all the other suits had, and stared straight forwards into the pillar in front of it.

In the photo, however… the helmet was staring directly at Neru.

Holding the phone up so the two were side by side made the difference plain to see.  Her mind was racing, trying to find a reasonable explanation, but there wasn’t one.  Perhaps it was just the reflection?  She spun around to check the mirror again, but the suit there was, predictably, also facing the pillar.  Bringing the phone down in front of her again, but it was unmistakable that the helmet was facing towards her in the photo.  Wh… why was it only-

A faint “clang” from somewhere down the hall startled her in her already perturbed state.  Turning around again, she pressed her back against the mirror as she shined the light into the darkness of the grand hall, just barely making out faint glints of metal in the darkness.  A part of her mind jumped to the worst possible scenario, but she pushed it back down, still hoping for a reasonable explanation.  “H-hello?” she called out, her voice wavering.  “Is- is anyone there?  Who-”

A horrible thought popped into her head, and she rapidly brought the light back to the nearest pillar-

It was facing her.  The armor that had been staring towards the pillar a moment ago was fully facing her now.  It held its battleaxe towards her, the blade reduced to a vertical slice due to the angle.

Neru’s heart was pounding and her breathing was shallow as all logical thought abandoned her, leaving her with this impossible reality.  Bringing the light around again, metal figures could be clearly seen dotting the hall, much closer than they had been previously.  Neru sidled along the mirror, eventually stepping onto the carpet once again as she frantically scanned the light back and forth across the hall, hoping that would somehow hinder the armors’ advance.

_ Wh- why is this happening?  Wh… how can they move??  Why!?  Are- are they going to attack me?  Those axes-  What do I do?!  How do I… _  Neru faintly realized that she was actually shouting everything that was coming into her head.  “Anyone!” she screamed.  “Help me!!”

In the distance, a rhythmic  _ “whooshing” _ sound could be heard as the crystal chandeliers lit themselves, the light quickly approaching Neru’s position from both sides, but she barely registered the phenomenon.  The armor had given up the stealthy approach, and was now quite visibly approaching her from all sides.  In a fit of desperation, she spun around again, banging both her fists on the mirror and shouting as tears streamed down her face.   _ “Why!??  Why is this happening!??  What do I do!??  SOMEBODY!!  PLEEASE!!!”   _ She let out one final, incoherent scream which was punctuated by a particularly loud “whoosh” as the chandelier above her became lit.  Her fists still pressed against the glass, Neru stared up in a moment of clarity between the tears at the semicircle of armor standing around her reflection, their broadaxes raised above their helmets, ready to swing the blades down at any moment.  Weakly, she turned around once again to face the real ones, her heart racing and her breathing heavy.

Closing her eyes, Neru took a deep breath and rested against the glass- and it gave behind her.  Her eyes shot open, and with little more than a soft yelp, she fell backwards, through the mirror.

Landing on her back on the carpet behind the mirror, the phone was knocked from her grip and slid across the carpet to rest, light angled at the ground, a few feet away.  She could only watch, in the dim reflected light, as the mirror silently rippled and became still, sealing the way back.

This side of the mirror was just glass, the hallway she’d just been in plainly visible.  The hallway behind her was dark, save for the light that shone through behind the suits of armor.  It was a… one-way mirror.

All at once, the suits of armor brought their axes down onto the mirror, and Neru flinched as a resounding  _ “BOOM!” _ echoed down the hallway.  The mirror, however, remained unharmed.  She couldn’t see a single scratch…  The armor continued its assault, however, continuing to bang erratically on the pane of glass.  Neru sat, sprawled on the carpet, catching her breath as she realized she was safe for now… until a loud “ _ crack”  _ spread from the center of the mirror, from floor to the ceiling, bisecting the glass.

Gasping, Neru turned and snatched her phone from the ground, scrambling up onto her feet.  More cracks could be heard, spreading across the pane of glass as she retreated.

She had to get away from there.  She ran.

She just…

ran.

...

When Neru came to, she was staring up at a pattern, hexagonal in nature.  It reminded her of a snowflake, with six spokes coming from the center... or maybe a spider’s web?  Except blockier and… brown, being made of wood and all...

Groaning, she sat up, rubbing the back of her head and glancing around the small room she found herself in.  Its walls were constructed of stone, same as the corridors she had been running through before.  The room was roughly circular and appeared to be about 3 or so meters in diameter…   _ “Where am I?” _ she thought to herself.

Set into the wall directly behind her was a window.  Through its four quarter panes streamed the bluish-white light of stars and the full moon, which were visible through the glass.  Carefully standing, Neru made her way over to the wall, gingerly testing her limbs to make sure nothing was injured.  As she reached the window, she placed a hand in its center, pushing it slightly to see if it opened.

Cool autumn air wafted in as the two halves of the window swung outwards.  Leaning out of the opening, her gaze was drawn downwards as she realized the dizzying height she was at.  It took her a few moments of staring to register a small walkway, which connected to a sidewalk some ways down the hill.  The road there was lined with a familiar row of streetlights, which the group had been walking along previously.  The one that stood next to the cobblestone path was still flickering slightly…  There was no doubt about it.  She was at the top of the tower they’d seen from the street, at the base of which was the oaken door they’d entered what seemed like hours ago.  As for how she’d ended up here...

“Hey, Neru,” said a voice from behind her.  The ponytailed girl spun around, nearly whacking the speaker with said ponytail.  “Wah!  Careful there!”

“H-huh!?  You, T-Teto!?” Neru stammered, brushing her hair out of the way.  “Wh-where did you… How did you get here!?”

The drill-haired girl laughed.  “I just followed you, silly!  You were in quite the rush, so I decided you knew where you going, but I got lost after a while…  I was so scared, y’know!?  I’ve been wandering around this place ever since you guys just up and disappeared, and I didn’t...”

Groaning inwardly, Neru tuned the girl’s babble out and crossed her arms as she looked the chimera up and down, just to make sure nothing was different.  Apart from looking slightly unkempt, the pink-haired girl seemed the same as before…

Feeling a cool breeze from behind her, Neru glanced back towards the window again.  She paused for a moment, staring towards the starlit sky beyond the opening.  Perhaps…

“Hey, Teto?” she interrupted, turning back towards the chimera girl.

“Eh?”  Teto was standing in a ridiculous pose, perhaps trying to illustrate some point she’d been talking about.  “...What is it?” she continued when Neru didn’t further respond.

Shaking her head, Neru pulled Teto over to the window, pointing down at the road and adjoining path leading to the base of the tower.  “Look,” she said, “the door we came in through is right down there.  You think if we just head straight down from here we can get back to it?”

Tilting her head, Teto replied, “But wasn’t it locked?”

Shooting Teto an exasperated glare, Neru replied, “Well, have you seen any  _ other  _ doors in this place?  That one is our best bet, and we can just knock it down if we have to, right?”  She made a jabbing gesture with her finger at the finer points of her argument.

Crossing her arms and tilting her head, Teto seemed to consider Neru’s statement.  After a moment she nodded and replied, “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”  Reverting to her overly cheery self, she grinned, asking, “So, where do we start, then??”

Neru stepped across the small room, towards the stairs set in the floor Teto must have arrived from.  “Well, from here, obviously.”

“Huh?  But that’s where we came from…”

“...Yes?  And?”

“W-well, I mean… If we went that way we’d just be backtracking…  and I don’t really feel like climbing down those stairs again…”  Teto stammered, her gaze wandering along the wall to rest on the adjacent window.

Neru squinted slightly, beginning to realize what Teto had in mind.

“I-I mean, there’s a much faster escape rout-”

“No,” Neru interrupted, growing more irritated.

“But-”

“Are you actually kidding me right now!?” Neru retorted. “It’s at least a 50 foot drop out there.  Or are you suggesting you can fly?  Yeah right, give me a break.  Even if your whole chimera shtick had any real substance, I doubt those puny wings could do much more than function as cheap fans.  I mean, come on, really?  Did you actually think that was a good idea?  And besides, we still have to find the others.  Are you really okay with leaving them in this ridiculous place?”

Defeated, Teto shook her head and slowly made her way back to the stairs.   Neru didn’t say anything as the drill-haired girl stepped past her and started downwards.  Her small bat-like wings flapped in time with her steps, somehow making her look even more sad.   _ That… had been pretty harsh, huh. _  Swallowing, Neru made her way down the steps, following behind Teto.  The moonlight from the tower window didn’t reach very far down the staircase, so Neru pulled out her cell phone and pointed it downwards to light their way.

They climbed down the wooden spiral staircase in silence for a few flights, until the steps ended rather abruptly, not at a door in the wall, but rather at an opening in the floor, not unlike a trapdoor.  The gap contained a short wooden ladder which led down into a brightly lit area, which Neru climbed down into after Teto.

The room she found herself in was circular, much like the smaller room a few flights above it, but this one seemed to be about twice the diameter.  The ladder stood in the center of the room, and the stonework of the floor fanned out from its base.  Lit torches were set in the wall at quarters of the circumference, and there were two arched openings opposite each other.

Unlike any other room she’d come across in this building previously, this one was actually furnished, if only barely.  A rough wooden table and similarly constructed chair sat near one wall, while opposite them was a long wooden bench.  There was one thing that stood out, however.  Standing on the wooden table, looking rather out of place, was a large, glittering, jewel-encrusted, golden goblet.

Neru turned slightly towards Teto, not taking her eyes off the opulent cup, and asked, “You… came through here before, right?  To get to the tower?”

When she didn’t hear an immediate response, Neru glanced over to see the drill-haired girl nodding.  “I followed you… to this room, but… I thought you didn’t go up there, so I kept going…”  She pointed to one of the archways.  “After a while, I remembered the ladder, so I decided to check, and… well…”

“Hmm…” Neru mused, her gaze drawn back to the golden goblet.  After a moment of hesitation, she stepped across the room towards the rough, wooden table it stood upon.

“N-Neru?” Teto stammered.

Ignoring Teto’s confusion, Neru made her way over to the table and peered over the lip of the goblet.  Contained within was a dark, reddish purple liquid, reaching about an inch from the top of the cup.  “Wine…?” Neru mumbled to herself.  Dipping the tip of her pinky into the drink, she brought it to her mouth, tasting it.

“Hey, um… Neru?” Teto asked, standing next to her.  “Are you… sure you should be doing that?”

“Huh?  Oh, uh… sorry,” Neru replied, stepping back from the table.

The pair returned to the center of the room before making their way around the perimeter, searching for anything of interest.

“Hey, um… Teto?” Neru asked, stepping next to her.  “Are… you alright?  I’m sorry if I was a bit harsh earlier…”

“Huh?  Oh… uh, it’s fine,” Teto replied, continuing down the corridor.

They walked in silence for a while, while Neru listened to her footsteps echoing down the dark hallway.  Neru squinted at Teto’s feet, shining the phone’s light down at them.  Listening carefully, she realized something was very wrong.

“Teto…” she began, still unsure if she was actually going to ask this.  “Are you… uh, f… floating?”

“Hm?” Teto started, twisting around to look at her feet.  “Oh!  Of course I am, Neru!”

“...What?”

“Oh, Neru!” she exclaimed, bringing a finger up to her cheek.  “Didn’t you know?  When I’m in my chimera form, I can float!”  She did a little pirouette in midair as she said this.

Neru raised an eyebrow towards Teto, saying “I can’t… say I knew that before.  Are… are you sure it’s not just, like… an illusion or something?”

Teto’s only response was to giggle.

It wasn’t too long before the pair came upon a fork in the corridor.  Two paths continued onwards from where they were standing, one to the left and the other to the right.

“Which way do we go?” Neru asked.

“I’m not sure,” Teto replied.

Both hallways looked exactly the same as Neru shined the phone’s light down each in turn.  “Hmm… It probably doesn’t really matter.  Let’s just… go left, then.”  Teto nodded her assent, and the pair proceeded in the decided direction.

“...You’d better run, Neru.”

“What?” Neru turned towards her companion, raising an eyebrow.  “Are you just trying to sca-”  She stopped abruptly, realizing Teto was nowhere in sight.  “Teto?” she called.

“I told you to run.”

A shiver ran up her spine, and Neru spun around to face the direction the voice had come from.  “T-teto?” she stammered, shining the light around the dark corridor.  “This r-really isn’t funny any more…”

Neru froze as she felt a presence press up behind her, emitting a cold aura that made her skin crawl.  A hand reached around her side, its claws brushing lightly across her arm.  In her ear, the chimera whispered, “I thought I told you… to  _ run!” _

Pain shot through her arm as the clawed hand ripped downwards, leaving bloody lines across Neru’s forearm.  Letting out a scream, Neru found herself able to move again, and she struggled free of the monster’s grasp.

She ran.

Panting, Neru slammed the door behind herself, resting her back against the wood as she caught her breath.   _ How had it come to this?  Was it something she’d said? _

The scratching on the other side of the door stopped abruptly, followed by receding footsteps.  Neru waited in silence for a few moments before quietly stepping away from the door and shining the light around the room.

There was no way out.  The barren, cold room was devoid of any escape other than the door she had entered through earlier.  As she turned back towards it, she saw the chimera silhouetted against the still closed door.

“H-how’d you… the door was bolted, I was sure-”

“Oh, Neru!” Teto exclaimed, showing her pointed teeth in a wide grin.  “Didn’t you know?  In my chimera form, no physical barrier can stop me!”

Pressing her back against the wall, Neru held her eyes and mouth agape, but she couldn’t make any sound.  She felt a cold sensation press into her back, and felt a liquid running between her fingers and down her legs.  She shivered, unable to tear her eyes from the advancing figure before her as the pressure behind her continued building.

Suddenly, the wall gave way, stones and water washing around her and pushing her forwards.  Slowly, she managed to turn around and began wading against the torrent, desperate to get away from the chimera girl.

As she continued, the flow of water lessened, still rushing past her feet as she pressed onwards.  She ran down the corridor, her steps splashing in the shallow water.  In the distance behind her, she could still hear Teto’s faint laughter, but she knew she was gaining on her.

“Why are you doing this!?” Neru shouted, wading through the thick liquid.

“Oh, Neru!” the demon exclaimed, her voice echoing throughout the empty expanse.  “Didn’t you know?  In my̷ chime̴ra ͟fo̵r m, ̷I ̕hun͝ger̨ ̢f͜ or t͟he͡ fle͜s̶h o͘ f̷͟͡ hum̨͟͠a̶̢n͝s̀́͢!҉̢”

No matter what direction she held her phone’s light, Neru could see nothing but water and darkness.  Her phone’s screen displayed an image… who was that?  It was Miku… her neck bloody and wrapped in a rope, her body torn and broken, and her eyes listless and dead.  Neru scrolled to the next image.  Long metal spikes protruded from Rin’s body, impaling her arms and legs, blood running down their length behind her.  Her head was gone.  The next image showed Len, floating face-up, his chest and navel ripped open, his blood diffusing into the water.  She tried to swipe to the next image, but the screen was gone.  All that was left of her phone was a thin plastic frame.  Len floated in front of her, his dead, lifeless gaze staring into her.  Recoiling backwards, she bumped into something else floating in the water.  It was Rin.  Her head lay sideways atop her chest, and liquid seeped slowly through the holes in her body.  Neru looked frantically between the four bodies that had appeared around her, unable to find anywhere to rest her eyes.  As the blo od slowly rose, she could only mutter to herself, “Why…  Why…?”

**“Oh, Neru!”** the whole world rumbled, the ground giving way beneath her.   **“Didn’t you know?  In my chimera form, there’s nothing you can do, except die!”**

She continued sinking further down, no matter how hard she tried to swim upwards.

**“You don’t deserve to exist in the first place.”**

She could feel only darkness and pain as the blood drowned and choked her.

**“How can you expect to save anyone... if you can’t even save yourself?”**

Glints of metal and teeth glittered in the darkness, drawing ever closer.

**“The only thing you can do…”**

As the last vestiges of air soured in her lungs, the sharp missiles all charged towards her.

**_“Is die.”_ **


End file.
